


Never Again

by guardianinthesky



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Gen, M/M, hints of loki/thor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 03:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2372459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardianinthesky/pseuds/guardianinthesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt: "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."</p><p>Loki comes back into Thor's life after being gone for several years. Can Thor trust his brother not to hurt him again?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Again

**Author's Note:**

> Just posting some of my older stuff that I've had on my tumblr for a while now. 
> 
> Hope you like it!

Loki had disappeared almost right after their mother’s death. It took Thor a while to actually realize it. At first, he had assumed that his brother simply needed some time, and that he would eventually come back, just like he always did. Oh, how wrong he had been. 

The days had passed, and there had been no sign of Loki. Thor had started to worry, of course. He’d wondered if maybe Loki had done something stupid. He knew how much their mother’s death had hurt him, and - as much as he liked to pretend otherwise - Loki was perfectly capable of making mistakes.

He had tried to get a hold of him. He’d called him, he’d texted him, and he’d even emailed him. Nothing. Not a single response. Thor didn’t know what else to do. Loki had no friends that he could call (as far as he knew) and there was no other way of getting in touch with him. For all he knew, Loki could’ve left the state. He could’ve left the country. Thor refused to believe that he was hurt. Loki may not have been thinking straight at the moment, but he would never hurt himself. Not even because of something like this.

The days passed, and Thor slowly began to move on with his life. He went back to work, and he spent as much time as he could with his friends. He even visited his father a couple of times, but he always found himself wanting to get out of there as soon as he realized that his father didn’t want to talk about Loki. He didn’t even want to acknowledge his existence. Thor also couldn’t help but notice that his mother’s pictures weren’t the only ones that had left the walls. No wonder he only visited his father every other month.

Even with Odin’s behavior getting on his last nerve, Thor managed to live a pretty normal life. That is, until he got the test results, about a year after his mother’s death. He called Loki as soon as he’d left the hospital. He left him yet another message, telling him what he’d just found out and that he felt like he should know about it. At this point, he didn’t expect Loki to call him. He didn’t expect him to do anything. Even so, there was a part of him that clung to that last bit of hope that maybe this would finally get Loki to come back.

And Loki did come back. Not quite as fast as Thor had expected him to, though. It took him almost a year.

One day, he was just standing there when Thor opened the front door. His hair was a bit shorter, he seemed to be even skinnier now, making those cheekbones look more pronounced than ever. Other than that, though? He still looked like his little brother. The little brother who had left him without so much as a warning. Thor didn’t know whether to pull him into a tight hug, or immediately slam the door shut.

Eventually, he chose the latter.

He ended up opening the door again a couple of seconds later. To his surprise, Loki was still standing there.

“Am I too late?” Loki asked him, and Thor could almost feel himself tearing up right then and there, because he’d missed that voice so much. As amazing as it was to finally be able to hear it again, he couldn’t muster anything other than a light shrug.

“I’m still standing, aren’t I?”

Somehow, Loki managed to make his way inside his apartment. Thor realized pretty quickly that he still wasn’t capable of saying no to him, even after all this time. He sat down on the couch, turning on the TV just so he would have something else to look at, even though he wanted nothing more than to keep his eyes on Loki, to study all of the little changes and to find out if he could still make his brother blush simply by staring at him a few seconds too long.

“Your hair is longer,” Loki said after a couple of minutes, his fingertips brushing against the back of his neck. Thor gave him a quick look before turning his eyes back to the TV, trying to focus on whatever stupid movie he was supposed to be watching.

“It’s been two years. Of course it’s longer.” Maybe he was slightly more upset about this than he’d first thought? He didn’t want to treat Loki like this, but he really didn’t know what else to do. He had no idea how long Loki was going to stay, or what he was even doing here. 

Loki pulled his hand back, and Thor breathed a heavy sigh.

“I’m sorry.”

Thor finally turned to look at his brother, but Loki was staring at his hands and refused to meet his eyes.

“I know that it doesn’t change anything. But I’m sorry.”

He definitely hadn’t expected that. As far as he could remember, Loki had only apologized about five times in all of their years together. Not entirely sure what to do, Thor looked at him for a long moment, before slowly reaching up and putting a hand against Loki’s neck. He was about to tell him that it was okay, and that he forgave him for everything he’d done, but those were not the words that ended up coming out of his mouth.

“You’re right,” he said. “It doesn’t change anything.”

Standing up, Thor left the couch and headed into his bedroom, making sure to close the door behind him.

Thor assumed that Loki would be gone by the time he came back out again the next morning, but he wasn’t. He found him on the couch, where he was snoring softly and hugging one of the big pillows to his chest. The sight of him made Thor’s chest ache, but he forced himself to look away. He knew that it would be foolish to trust his little brother. He’d been gone for such a long time. He had disappeared right when they needed each other the most. What was to say he wouldn’t do it again? There was no way he was going to allow himself to get too attached. 

As so, he made sure to spend as little time with Loki as he could. He continued to go to work, and he even continued to spend time with his friends. He quickly decided not to tell them that Loki was back. It was just easier like that. He didn’t want to deal with the questions, or the sympathetic looks he would no doubt be getting.

Each and every time he came back to the apartment, he expected it to be empty. It never was. Usually, Loki was sitting on the damn couch. Sometimes he was watching TV, and sometimes he was listening to music. He even read some of Thor’s books. Still, they barely talked to each other. Thor didn’t feel like opening up to him just yet, and Loki had obviously realized that he wasn’t interested in talking to him for longer than a minute or two at the time.

Thor still felt bad about treating Loki like this. Occasionally, at least. Until he remembered just how much his brother had hurt him. That made it surprisingly easy not to talk to him. Unfortunately for him, that all changed when he came back home from work one night. He immediately noticed the smell of food, and he frowned lightly as he made his way into the kitchen. Loki was standing by the stove, and Thor cleared his throat, making him turn around. He looked a bit flushed, almost like he was caught in the act of doing something he wasn’t supposed to. It reminded Thor of all those times he’d caught Loki in the middle of planning some kind of mischief when they were kids.

“I didn’t think you’d be back yet,” Loki said, almost as if it was Thor’s fault for interrupting him in the middle of what was obviously supposed to be a surprise. Ignoring his words, Thor stepped closer and realized that Loki was making chicken with rice and this creamy sauce that had always been his favorite. Their mother used to make that sauce whenever she wanted to cheer him up. He wondered if this was Loki’s new way of trying to apologize. Either way, he figured that maybe he should give this a try. He could at the very least try to be polite. 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked, and Loki gave him a surprised look. He ended up staring at him for quite a few seconds before he nodded his head.

“You can set the table.”

Dinner turned out to be surprisingly nice. Maybe it had something to do with the incredibly delicious food, or maybe it had something to do with the bottle of wine that Loki must have bought because Thor could seriously not remember ever having that bottle. Either way, he found himself telling Loki all about what his friends had been up to lately. He even told him about the trip they’d all been planning. He suspected that his friends had noticed that he’d been slightly more upset than usual lately. And it probably also had something to do with them wanting to do these kind of things with him now, since the future was somewhat… uncertain.

“Maybe I could come with you?” Loki suggested, and Thor snapped out of his thoughts to give him a confused look. Loki had never seemed particularly interested in spending time with his friends before. In fact, Thor usually had to beg him to come along. What had changed? 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, shaking his head.

Loki gave him a long look, and Thor forced himself not to turn his eyes away.

“You haven’t told them about me, have you? They don’t know that I’m back.”

Damn. He should have known that Loki would be able to see right through him. His brother still had this annoying habit of being able to read him like an open book. Not sure how to get out of this one, Thor took another long sip of his wine, telling himself that walking away was always an option.

“No, they don’t. Look, I’ve already been through the worried phone calls and the overly sympathetic looks once, okay? I don’t need to go through it again. I’d rather handle it on my own.”

Loki’s mouth was set in a thin line, and he was gripping his glass so tightly Thor almost wondered if he was trying to crush it with his bare hands.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Loki asked, sounding like he was holding himself back from exploding. In a way, it probably would have been easier to watch him explode.

“You know exactly what it means, Loki. I’m not an idiot. Sooner or later, you’re going to leave again. Maybe it won’t happen tomorrow, maybe it won’t even happen next week, but it’s going to happen at some point. This…” He motioned towards the food on the table. “All of this is too good to be true.”

“I just wanted to make you feel better,” Loki told him through gritted teeth.

“I don’t need you to make me feel better!” Thor stood up on shaky legs. “You can’t, okay? I know why you’re back, but it’s too late.”

How could they possible repair this after everything Loki had done to screw it up? He had tossed their relationship out the window, and then proceeded to stomp on it a couple of times, to the point where it had become unrecognizable.

“Can’t you just trust me?” Loki asked him, but Thor shook his head.

“Why should I? You’ll just leave me again.”

“You?” Loki hissed at him, finally letting go of his glass. “Oh, right. Because it’s always about you, isn’t it? I didn’t leave because of you, you asshole.”

“I know that!” Thor shouted. “I know you didn’t! But I needed you. I needed you, and you weren’t there, and…” Shaking his head, he turned his eyes away. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, heaving a sigh. He could feel the tears threatening to fall from his eyes, but he stubbornly told them to stay where they were. He wasn’t going to cry now. Not because of this. Taking a deep breath, he slowly turned back to look at Loki again, who was watching him with a cautious look on his face.

“I can’t lose you again, Loki,” he said. “I’m not strong enough.”

He left his brother alone in the kitchen. The fight would just continue to get worse, and he refused to let that happen. Stepping into his bedroom, he closed the door behind him and quickly made his way over to the bed. As he put his head against the pillow, he felt a couple of tears leaving his eyes, but he ignored them.  
He wondered if this was it, if this was the thing that would finally make Loki leave. He had no reason to stay, really. He had to know that this wasn’t going to work. How could Thor possibly trust him ever again?

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been laying there when he heard the door open. Staring at the shadow on the wall, he waited for whatever Loki was about to say, wondering if he was actually going to tell him that he was about to leave this time.

What he hadn’t expected was for Loki to join him on the bed. He could feel Loki pressing his chest against his back, and he even wrapped one of his arms around him, giving him a light squeeze as his lips found the back of his neck. Thor pressed his lips together, worried that he was going to end up scaring Loki away if he made any loud noises. His brother didn’t leave him, though. Instead, Loki pressed another kiss to his shoulder, and after hesitating for a couple of seconds, Thor slowly put one of his hands over Loki’s smaller one. He could feel his brother’s lips against his ear, and he forced himself not to turn around.

“I’m right here, Thor,” Loki whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And Thor believed him. Somehow, he actually believed him. He knew that he was most likely going to end up getting himself hurt all over again, but he didn’t care. For now, he was going to give Loki a chance to prove it to him.

Waiting a long moment, he turned around and squinted a bit in the darkness, his eyes eventually finding Loki’s green ones. He put one of his hands against Loki’s neck, and he was pretty sure that his brother was actually leaning into the touch, both of them obviously relying on something that felt familiar. Letting that be enough for now, Thor kept looking at him, almost as if he was afraid that Loki would disappear if he closed his eyes. Eventually, though, he couldn’t keep himself awake any longer, and he fell into a deep sleep, his brother’s body next to his own offering him a sense of comfort he hadn’t felt in a really long time.

When he woke up the next morning, it took him a long moment to remember what had happened last night. Opening his eyes, he was expecting to find his brother right next to him. He was expecting to find that calm, almost serene expression on his face that he only had whenever he was asleep. He was expecting to be allowed to put his arms around his brother again, but he quickly realized that the other side of the bed was empty.

No.

His insides immediately went cold, and he pushed himself up, his eyes widening as he looked around the room. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. This had to be a dream. It was all a bad dream. Shaking his head, Thor ran his trembling fingers through his hair, glancing back down at the bed again. It was still empty. 

Opening and closing his mouth a couple of times, he struggled to make a sound - any kind of sound - but he found that it was incredibly difficult to concentrate when his head was pounding, and his heart was beating faster than it ever had before. What finally passed his lips, was nothing more than a desperate attempt at making sure that this was all a mistake, that he wasn’t actually being left along again.

“Loki?”


End file.
